Jean-Paul Sartre

Essay # 46824

Literature > French
Philosophy > History - 20th Century
Philosophy > Metaphysics

Jean-Paul Sartre

An analysis of the life and ideals of Jean-Paul Sartre.

1,543 words () | 6 sources | MLA | 2003 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper describes the life of Jean-Paul Sartre, French author, literary critic, activist, and most famously, philosopher. It looks at how Sartre was a key figure in the development of existentialism, the idea that destiny depends solely on the individual. It takes examples from his life and analyzes them in terms of how they influenced his theories. Just as the work of the philosopher and his existence are intertwined, the chronological details of Sartre's life are interwoven with explanations of his key ideas.

From the Paper:

"Sartre's most famous book, Being and Nothingness, has infinite ambition: it aims to declare the meaning of being itself. When someone is born, he declares, they are nothing. It is only through choices and experience that they become a self. "Man invents his road and realizes himself... it is he who must make himself (Lafarge 134). But sometimes people attempt to deny the need to choose. He gives the example of a woman who must decide whether or not to respond to her date's affections. If he reaches for her hand, she can decide to either pull away or let her hand stay. This choice is one that will be made in passion, for it deals with emotions: love, disgust, contempt, attraction, longing, fear. From this example he introduces the idea of acting in bad faith." When he takes her hand, she tries to avoid the painful necessity of a decision to accept or reject him, by pretending not to notice, leaving her hand in his as if she were not aware of it."